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06/12/2006

Clone Wars

Firt of this graphics was uploaded this december, 5th at Newspagedesigner, signed by Christopher Arnold, from Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. It was told to be with a piece about fluor in water and tooth risks. Eight hours later, Cindy Jones-Hulfachor, from South Florida Sun-Sentinel, uploaded the other one. She assured that this graphic was made by her six years ago, with an information about how to solve some tooth problems.

It's not the first time this happens. Just some months ago, Amir Shaik, from The Times of India, uploaded in NPD the first one of the other pair of images, completely different of his own styles.The second one was uploaded by Steve Wilson, from Fort Worth Star-Telegram, just few days before in the same web. Amir just flipped the image (changing heart side) and erased the nipples. Plagiarism was clear. Steve wrote Amir asking about it, and all the indian said was that he's very young and he loves Steve's graphics.There are evident things. It's a usual practice, fomented by big bosses, just copyng other graphic information. Some ask for a copy of the graphic itself. You could try to justify it talking about lack of time, putting the blame on your boss and a thousand excuses. It's not ethical, but if you sign it with the real author as source could be forgiven. Soemtimes, bosses just don't permit you to add another newspaper as source... But what you can't never do is signing it with your own name.One step further is the "Print screen" button, unadmissable. But just sign it and upload it with your name is going tooooooo far. Posting it to competitions could be the biggest shame. But it's not so unusual. I remeber my Malofiej staff times with several graphics showing Bin Laden's cave... There were some idetic graphics... And I can't imagine Bin LAden offering his house blueprints to media... I also remeber a illustration of a taliban made by Emilio Amade (I think) for El Mundo just after 9-11, which became the standar taliban in lots of graphics all around the world. It's not exclusive of infographics world, but it's something to worry about.